I love the Noisettes. The girl has got the most perfect combination of sass and sultriness.

A lot's been going on - here is some choice reading (and from this, you should be able to figure out what I've been thinking about/working on).

• 8 Management Lessons I Learned From Apple
  "Agarwal tells us that Apple is completely run by its engineers. "They don’t have a lot of product management," he says. "Most of the project teams are really small, and they’re all driven by the engineers."
• Taking the Mystery out of Scaling a Company
  "When you scale an organization, you will also need to give ground grudgingly. Specialization, organizational structure, and process all complicate things quite a bit and implementing them will feel like you are moving away from common knowledge and quality communication. It is very much like the offensive lineman taking a step backwards. You will lose ground, but you will prevent your company from descending into chaos."
• Increase Your User Activity with Points, Badges, and Status
• The Secret Law of Page Harmony
  

"if i leave, and i don't see her, i feel like i really have a regret... like i'm going to go home and think 'what if?'"

tragic video -  what an idiot!

flippin' fantastic

"for the life of me I cannot remember
what made us think that we were wise and
we'd never compromise..."

the verve pipe - freshmen

la jolla shores, san diego, ca

From the "Baby Got Back" Wikipedia article:

In the opening verse, Sir Mix-A-Lot professes his affinity for large buttocks and his inability to disguise this fact from others. He goes on to describe other desirable physical attributes such as a trim waistline, tight fitting garments, and unblemished skin. Though the song does not contain a distinct narrative, the author does visit upon recurrent themes such as female body image as depicted in media, male attitudes towards dating and relationships, and the author's own sexual prowess.

In later verses he expresses his exasperation with the entertainment industry's portrayal of the ideal female form. He soundly rejects the notion promulgated by fashion magazines that diminutive buttocks are more desirable. His critique of the women that appeared in contemporary music videos is particularly scathing, likening their appearance to those of prostitutes. To further illustrate his point, he stipulates the purported ideal proportions of 36-24-36 (measuring the bust, waist, and hip circumferences respectively) would only be pleasing on women with a standing height no greater than 63 inches.

Mix-A-Lot also briefly touches upon the roles that ethnicity, nutrition, and physical fitness play in determining the shape and size of the female buttocks. He recommends that any exercises performed should be limited to the abdominal area. He cautions against a fitness routine strenuous enough to diminish the heft of the gluteal muscles. Though he offers no broad dietary guidelines, Mix-A-Lot contends that the dish "red beans and rice" is an important food staple for maintaining healthy buttocks.

Various lyrics address the fact that some men find no intrinsic value in large buttocks and consequently express disinterest. Mix-A-Lot makes clear that he would eagerly strike up relations with any woman overlooked or discarded by such men. The remainder of the narrative is fleshed out with the author's various attempts to entice women into enjoying a ride in his luxury automobile, presumably in exchange for sexual favors.

Insanely awesome.

The loft continues to be a work in progress. Swapped out the old white shelf for something more consistent with the color theme of the place:

My place is woefully in need of storage space, so this actually helped out a lot.

Now I just need to fill out the lower compartments with things. Maybe fishtanks. (Ha-ha, just kidding - remember when I used to have three fish tanks? What the heck was I thinking?!)

Seriously - got suggestions?

I love how the surfers look like ducks.

I sometimes feel the need to help all of y'all procrastinate. I know that's why you idly drop by my journal - there's no way my interesting stories about going to the post office to post a letter and OH GOD WHY DID I JUST BUY 50 STAMPS I WILL NEVER SEND 50 LETTERS FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE are why you're reading this.

The latest internet meme seems to be "Epic Sax Guy":

A guy in a striped white vest, in white Ray-Bans, playing the saxophone while gyrating his hips... it is frickin' amazing.

Like all awesome videos, this one came out of "Eurovision" - a competition to find the crappiest Eurotrash songs:

Honestly, when that sax guy comes out, I'm not sure how the crowd just doesn't go wild. I'd go insane if I were there.

I worked on a small photography project this weekend around Ocean Beach and Sunset Cliffs, San Diego. I'm pretty sure I killed my Polaroid camera - it wouldn't respond to one cartridge, then a new Impossible Project of Polaroids barely got exposed.

The project worked out OK - I'm going to try to reshoot parts of it later this week. Here is a random picture from Sunset Cliffs I took:

I had never been to Sunset Cliffs before, but I absolutely love it now. I'm definitely going back to shoot more, especially down the cliff face...

This has been my favorite movie in the past few years (this includes Inception). The whole thing just oozes style, creativity, and originality. I LOVE it!

The soundtrack is absolutely killer, too - it's that grungy, fast rock - if I were to ever start a band, it would be to play the music from this movie.

The casting is nearly perfect, and there are tons of LOL moments with a lot of the over-the-top acting.

HIGHLY recommend you see it!

well, you're just across the street,
looks a mile to my feet,
i wanna go to you.
funny how i'm nervous still,
i've always been the easy kill
i guess i always will

could it be that everything goes 'round by chance,
or only one way that it was always meant to be?
you kill me you always know the perfect thing to say.
i know what I should do but
I just can't walk away.

which came first - the way i live my life like a jimmy eat world song, or the jimmy eat world song which so perfectly encapsulates me?

So... I went and watched "Eat, Love, Pray" all by my lonesome. It was awesome. (The act, not the movie)

Change comes so incrementally. I think the only time I ever get a sense of how much things have changed is when I look back at old journal entries or looking at old photos. I look back at my entries from five years ago and think about how little I knew. To think about how much I've changed in five years (and how little I've changed in some aspects, as well).

I feel like the next five years will be the most defining ones - finding love, marriage, and kids? What about the job? Where will I be physically in five years?

Life keeps moving along so fast. I have to continually change as a person, to learn to accept the shortcomings of myself and of the world. What else can you do but be compassionate and move on with life?

This weekend was an eye-opening experience for me in so many ways. A glimpse into a life I never had and a glimpse into a life I could have. Both brought over me a sense of peace - the former because I've been fortunate to be where I am today - the latter because it made me believe again.

So here's to life - here's to continuing to evolve as a person - and accepting the fact that the next five years will set the path for the rest of my life...

My body is totally breaking down right now. I drove up to Vegas last Friday, then partied on Friday/Saturday night (in celebration of a friend's birthday). Then I helped out a friend with a stressful situation on Sunday/Monday - which led me to driving back home early Tuesday morning (got back at 1230 on Tuesday morning).

Had my normal workout routine with my trainer on 8am on Tuesday - then caught up with personal work, which led me to going to bed at 3am. Woke up at 730am this morning for a doctor's appointment...

I haven't got a fully rested night's sleep since last Thursday. And I've been driving/working like crazy.

I got home today from work and passed out on my bed at like 6pm. I just woke up, and my body feels incredibly sick - like I want to puke. It's wanted to ingest an insane amount of liquids.

I'm not sure the purpose of this post, except to garner some sympathy, but as I read it, it reads rather pathetic.

I guess what I'm realizing is my life is very, very busy. I just hope it slows down.

Google keeps sending me $100 credit to Adwords. Because I was getting sick of it, I finally decided to use the credit.

In keeping with the true spirit of the credit, I decided the best use of said credits would be to glorify myself (cause I'm all about that).

Try a Google search for "Who is awesome?" What do you see for the paid results? That's right...

The ad links to a webpage of me eating food out of the trash at work (which truly demonstrates the depth of my HTML skillz)

Happy Monday!

After MT posted this Director of Development job description, I got a few private pings about it asking if something with me had changed. It was actually kind of nice having people care about this kind of stuff.

In any case, the short answer is, yes, it is taking over a whole bulk of my responsibilities. Actually, I'd say it's taking over pretty much my primary role for the past two or so odd years. The reason for why this is happening is complicated and bears another post some day ... but for now, I'll be migrating into a more product-oriented role, which is one of the many places MT can benefit from me.

It's not a negative thing though - we should all be striving to grow in new and different ways. One of your responsibilities in your job should always be to actively deprecate yourself and train people into your previous positions. I've done that before with a multitude of people at MT, and it's always been beneficial to the company and to my career. Don't be scared - just take that leap of faith.

I started off as a developer, who progressed into a UI dev, then a dev lead, then a Dir of Eng, then a VP of Eng with a year-long stint running services. Every time, I've tried to bring people up to a level where they could succeed - and MT is better off because of it. (And every time, they've done a better job than I ever did...)